You are making some good points. If you take into consideration the trade offs I am not at all sure there is much difference. It may well be so small as to not be worth considering.
I am not sure why it is not talked of more but the Explorer is a form of a PI detector. It is correctly classed as a subgroup of PI detectors. The basic groups are SF, MF, PI which has a subgroup of TD.
<span style="background-color:#ffff00;">SF-Single Frequency </span>(MXT is an example.)
<span style="background-color:#ffff00;">MF-Multiple Frequency</span> (DFX is an example.)
<span style="background-color:#ffff00;">PI-Pulse Induction </span>(We know these of which most or underwater detectors.)
<span style="background-color:#ffff00;">TD-Time Domain which is retangular pulsed time domain. </span>(Explorer series, Sovereign, are examples.)
The Explorer is a very unique machine and as such does some great things when it comes to discrimination and depth. I use IM-16 and one reason is I prefer to not hear the null associated with discrimination.
It appears to me that they keep the null from the threshold from being too great. All we need for null discrimination is to just drop below sound. I have also tested that and see very little difference. It might make some on very deep faint targets but is one reason why we have FAST and DEEP.
HH, Cody